In its transition to high-definition, Mario Kart 8 preserves the series' strengths, but fails to correct any of its long-standing faults.

7.5

out of 10

Mario Kart 8 REVIEW

Mario Kart 8 Review (Wii U)

Submitted on: Jun 03, 2014 by Jayson Young

Do you really need another Mario Kart? After appearing on every significant Nintendo system since 1992, most gamers likely own at least one Mario Kart cartridge, disc or eShop download.

If that's true of your collection, then “Nope.” could be your answer -- especially if you're the kind of player who prefers to race solo, or loves popping balloons in Battle Mode, because Mario Kart 8 does those things about as well as Princesses Peach's servants do their guard duty.

On the flip side, if you were upset when, two weeks ago, Nintendo suddenly pulled the plug on Mario Kart Wii's and Mario Kart DS' online servers, your answer will be a resounding "Yes!" as Mario Kart 8's lag-free, 12-person network play is worth shelling out another $60, just to replace that non-functioning component of your old copies.

And if, somehow, you don't have access to any existing Mario Kart -- not even on friends' or neighbors' televisions -- then this eighth edition should still elicit a slightly less enthusiastic "Yes."

Gameplay

Apart from the Super Nintendo original, Mario Kart has always been a series where item luck, not driver skill, can be the difference between placing first and finishing fifth. That tradition continues, to the delight of casual players and the dismay of serious racing fans, in the franchise's eighth installment.

Mario Kart 8's one new defensive item, a horn that disrupts incoming projectiles and slams nearby drivers with a soundwave, could have been a nice counter-balance to the insane amount of weapon spam that you'll face in 12-player, 150cc races. But in Grand Prix mode, the super horn's so rare that you might only see it once per cup. Instead, the first place driver is typically given a surplus of coins from randomized item boxes, leaving his or her tailpipe vulnerable to attack. Even when you do have a banana peel or green shell backing you up, Mario Kart 8's barrage of items is so intense, that you're frequently put in situations where the only option is spinning out, at the cost of three precious coins.

The coin system, which originated in Super Mario Kart and was reintroduced in Mario Kart 7, feels like an unnecessary layer atop an already complex driving system, which includes airborne trick boosts, drive-over turbo strips, zero-gravity collision boosts, slipstream drafting and two degrees of power sliding boosts. Because coins are rarely placed along the fastest racing lines, and instead, are often planted in out-of-the-way locations, grabbing them feels more like a chore than a reward for expert cornering. It's not the kind of chore you can ignore, either, as the amount of coins in your driver's pocket directly affects his or her top speed. Competing online, which seems to reduce the odds of obtaining overpowering items, often feels more like a race to collect the maximum 10 coins and reach top speed rather than a turn-by-turn contest of driver skill.

Another Mario Kart 7 invention, hang glider and submarine attachments, allows go-karts to float through clouds or swim among sea creatures. These gliding sections, however, are so short and simple that they add little to the game, beyond some slight visual variety. Aside from slightly reduced speed, the underwater areas control so similarly to the standard asphalt racing, that their inclusion also feels inconsequential. The same could be said for Mario Kart 8's new wall-climbing, upside-down, anti-gravity sections, which transition so subtly that you'll hardly notice when your magnetic, neon blue wheels are being used. During cramped split-screen racing, though, these zero-gravity moments have a tendency to create more confusion than fun, due to sightline issues.

Modes & Features

After eight iterations over a 22-year span, it's disappointing that Nintendo's single-player experience still hasn't evolved beyond the basic Time Trials and Grand Prix modes. Mario Kart veterans should be able to defeat all the staff ghosts and finish every 150cc cup within one fun but short-lived weekend. After that, there's little left for solo players to accomplish, aside from shaving seconds off course records, or unlocking a few marginally different bike parts.

Mario Kart 8 contains the standard mix of 16 completely new courses and 16 remastered tracks pulled from previous entries. The 32 raceways may seem like a large number, but because laps tend to last less than a minute, it still feels like there's a shortage of roadways to explore. While tracks are packed with plenty of moving parts, character cameos and lively scenery, the roads are so wide and fail-safe, that the actual racing can become a bit boring. Even classic courses like Yoshi Valley (Nintendo 64) and Royal Raceway (Nintendo 64) are now much easier, thanks to added guard rails and wider pavement. The redesigned version of Rainbow Road, like Royal Raceway, has even had its super-jump shortcut removed, and has been edited down to a single anticlimactic lap, instead of its original three.

Nintendo's clone-filled, 30-character roster is equally disappointing, as five spots are wasted on pacifier-chewing “baby” versions of existing racers. Two additional spaces are squandered on metallic re-skins of Mario and Princess Peach. Past Mario Kart entrants, such as Dry Bones, Birdo, Boo, Diddy Kong and Funky Kong are conspicuously absent. Mario Kart 8's only new contestants, Bowser's seven Koopaling minions, are mostly interchangeable and forgettable, aside from the pink, pudgy Wendy and the wild-haired wizard Ludwig.

Multiplayer remains Mario Kart's primary appeal, though its fun factor is slightly diminished by some technical faults. Online voice chat is disabled during gameplay, meaning the few seconds you'll spend map-voting are the only moment you can communicate with your friends. Random network errors have ended several of my online sessions mid-race, though these disconnections may be a result of release-week server overload. The netcode powering online play is impressive, as I've competed against racers as far away as Puerto Rico, Canada, Mexico, Germany and Belgium without any noticeable latency.

Offline multiplayer modes run at a reduced frame rate (30 FPS) whenever three or more human-controlled karts are splitting the screen. Though two-player races run at the regular frame rate (either 59 FPS or 60 FPS, depending on AI drivers' inclusion), the screen can only be split vertically, making path-finding difficult during sharp turns and disorienting zero-gravity sections. Unlike rival Wii U racer, Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, Mario Kart 8 does not allow an extra friend to play on the GamePad while everyone else is playing on the television.

Mario Kart 8's lone new mode, called Mario Kart TV, is a replay capture system that runs in the background during races, saving them to a "recently played" list for later viewing. Even with the ability to upload and download user-made highlights, Mario Kart TV still feels like a waste of development time and in-game resources, as your clips cannot be longer than 60 seconds, and it can be difficult to edit a video down to the exact moments you want to share.

Battle Mode, once a selling point in games like Super Mario Kart, Mario Kart 64 and Mario Kart: Double Dash!! has been shot down by poor design decisions in Mario Kart 8. Instead of firing weapons inside compact, circular arenas, competitors now start at random places along the game's normal raceways. Problem is, these standard courses are long, one-way roads, which facilitate little action, but force lots of slow, 180-degree turns while tiredly searching for targets.

Final Thoughts

Mario Kart 8 is not the must-have, system-selling title that Nintendo needs to make the Wii U something more than an also-ran console.

But if a Wii U's already set up as the second or third system in your entertainment center, Mario Kart 8 should provide a few fun months of family-friendly multiplayer. Just don't expect to get much mileage out of the game's poorly conceived Battle Mode, or from its overly familiar, uninspired single-player content.

Visuals:Mario Kart 8 proves that the Wii U, despite its outdated hardware, can still produce graphically impressive video games. A lack of anti-aliasing, though, creates rough, jagged edges around the game's lively, colorful worlds. There is also a slight stuttering effect that causes minor frame loss in any race where a full pack of AI drivers is involved, disrupting the normal 60 hertz refresh rate.

Audio: Familiar Mario Kart sound effects, like the item box roulette and the pre-race countdown, possess a strong nostalgic allure. The personality of each racer is enhanced by character-specific celebrations, cries and taunts. A large band of live musicians is employed across a diverse, energetic soundtrack, mixing jazz, classical and rock music.

Online: You'll be pleased to find no noticeable latency in Mario Kart 8's online modes. Occasional server errors and a lack of in-race voice chat are the only downsides to an otherwise excellent online experience.

Replay Value:Mario Kart 8's chaotic multiplayer contests remain entertaining, but its same-old selection of single-player events has grown tiresome. Battle Mode is also more boring than ever, thanks to a lack of mode-specific battlegrounds. Staff ghosts have become unusually easy to defeat, since unlockable “expert” versions are not a part of Mario Kart 8's Time Trials.

This is one of the worst reviews I've ever read on OS. Nothing but hate and yet the reviewer says this is a good game! If its as bad as you say it is then give it a horrible rating as well. I think the reviewer is missing out on how much fun this game is by his constant complaining! I play games to be entertained and for fun & this game provides that in spades!!!!

This is one of the worst reviews I've ever read on OS. Nothing but hate and yet the reviewer says this is a good game! If its as bad as you say it is then give it a horrible rating as well. I think the reviewer is missing out on how much fun this game is by his constant complaining! I play games to be entertained and for fun & this game provides that in spades!!!!

Agree 100% with you on this. Mario Kart 8 is easily a 9.0-9.5 game. It's the first game in years that I've played that actually exceeded my expectations. It's really fun and addicting. I'll put it this way. I'm mainly a sports gamer. I got MLB The Show for my PS4 on May 6th and had played it daily. Since Mario Kart came out last week, I've played one game of The Show. I'll get back into that game as well, but as much as I like The Show, it means a lot that I've played one game of it in a week. I give MK a 9.5

I think it's interesting when people review games and give bad reviews because they compare them to serious sim games. Obviously a serious sim racing fan isn't going to play Mario Kart, or at least they won't like it. just because a game isn't the type of game YOU like doesn't mean it's not a good game. I don't like any GTA game. I think they're a complete waste of time, but I can see that it's a good game. So if I reviewed it, I'd give it a 9/10 based on all that it offers. If I'm speaking on my personal opinion of GTA, I'd give it a 3/10. So it's easy to see where a good reviewer will leave their personal feelings out of their reviews. A review is about the game, not you.

Don't tell me you docked the game a point for having aliasing and running at 59 frames per second, when nearly every console game regardless of platform has aliasing, and many of them struggle to even reach 30 fps. While I agree that antialiasing is significant in sim racing game for being able to spot corners and apexes, this issue, while present, warrants no mention for this game.

The most significant argument to be made, however, is why this site would review this game at all. If you guys review boxing and MMA games, you might as well review the Street Fighters, Kings of Fighters, Tekkens, and Soul Caliburs, because Mario Kart 8 is the racing equivalent of those games. While you're at it, you might as well review StarCraft II, League of Legends, and DotA 2, as those three are technically sports games, as well.

The only graphical flaws that impacted the game's final score were the issues caused by split-screening:

30 FPS during 3 & 4 player races

no option for a horizontal split-screen

no option for GamePad gameplay during multiplayer

visibility problems during sharp turns and anti-gravity sections

The frame loss (59 FPS) and accompanying stutter effect whenever AI drivers are involved is definitely noticeable, but ultimately not a big enough issue to have any impact on the overall score. Same thing with the lack of anti-aliasing.

The main reasons I gave Mario Kart 8 a 7.5 score are the coin system, the poor weapon balance, the bungled Battle Mode, and the lack of any new single-player content. Other issues like a weak character roster and limited online voice chat contributed to my negative impression of the game, but did not affect the final score significantly.

After the gameplay flaws, the biggest issue to me is how Nintendo has not introduced one new single-player mode in over 20 years of Mario Kart sequels, which is unacceptable, when kart racers as old as Diddy Kong Racing (1997) and as recent as Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed (2013) have proved that it's possible to have interesting single-player modes as well as a compelling multiplayer experience.

Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, in particular, includes everything Mario Kart 8 has (Grand Prix, Time Trials, co-op, online play), but it also features a huge World Tour mode that I still haven't beaten, after playing the game regularly for more than a year.

There's no excuse for a Nintendo-made game on its eighth version to be shown up in that regard, especially by a series that's only on it's second sequel, and is operating with a much smaller development team and staff budget.

As for why the game scored as high as it did despite all the criticisms mentioned in the review, Mario Kart 8's multiplayer experience is still extremely fun, especially online -- the netcode is some of the best I have ever seen in a console game.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phil_Lapineau

The most significant argument to be made, however, is why this site would review this game at all?

For the same reason that we review titles like NFL Blitz and NBA Jam:

Mario Kart, even with its fantasy power-ups, is still a racing game, just as Blitz and Jam are powered-up versions of football and basketball, respectively.

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They're fine. I actually prefer an always connected experience.
I'd really prefer an offline way to play, but its not a bother.
I don't really like them, and am more reluctant to buy a game because of it.
I won't buy them. I want my games offline.